UK Court Sentenced Imprisonment to Four Hackers

UK's Southwark Crown Court sentenced imprisonment to four men after they had pleaded guilty to committing an online fraud. They had cheated customers of NatWest Bank off £600,000 pounds. The scammers reportedly employed a Trojan virus for carrying out the theft.

Rahmanov admitted that he connived to cheat as well as transfer bank balances. He is to be extradited after completing his incarceration. Further, admitting to committing identical offence was Recardo Pereira. He said that he handled bank accounts where the money was deposited after a Trojan had automatically transacted for the cash transfer from the computers of NatWest customers. The other two also received 'incarceration' following their acknowledgment of involvement.

Dominic Connolly, Prosecutor, said that the Trojan, which the gang of fraudsters used, did not prevent customers from carrying on with their account transactions, as it clandestinely created new payee particulars, as reported by BBC on November 13, 2009.

The malware, once installed on the customers' PCs, remained inactive till the account holders accessed their accounts, verified whether there was sufficient money in the accounts, and subsequently made its way through Internet money-transfer procedures.

Thereafter, money was quickly stolen and moved into the alleged "mule" accounts managed by the fraudsters. A sizable portion of it reached Ukraine where the PC server was situated that produced the phony web-pages.

The Counsel said - after seven days or so, the unwitting client of the bank would get to realize that his account was short of the expected amount. Indeed, because of the Trojan and the associated fraud, a good 138 accountholders have lost funds worth £600,000, the Counsel added.

However, a NatWest spokeswoman stated that the bank's Internet banking system had not been compromised; rather the fraudsters planted the Trojan on flaw-ridden systems, while their owners remained unaware of the act, as reported by BBC. Fortunately, the Royal Bank of Scotland, the parent company of NatWest, has retrieved nearly 33% of the missing cash, it's reported.